Onboarding

This article will guide you through installing Afi SaaS Backup for Google Workspace for your Google Workspace tenant (domain). You can learn more about Afi's backup and recovery features here and get an overview of Afi account setup as well as product use-cases here. Afi also has product demo videos available here.

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You need to be a Google Workspace Super Admin to install the Afi application for your tenant.

Installation Steps

Log in and create an account

Go to the Afi sign-up page and log in to the Afi portal with your Google or Microsoft 365 user account to create an Afi organization account (this user will be selected as an Afi organization administrator).

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Any Google or Microsoft 365 user can create an Afi account. However, when you add a Google Workspace tenant to your Afi account, you must sign in as a Google Workspace Super Admin during the tenant onboarding.

Create an Afi organization account:

Install the application and add a Google Workspace tenant

After creating an Afi account, you will be redirected to the Afi portal and prompted to add your first data source (tenant). Please select Google Workspace to launch the onboarding wizard.

In the wizard, click Log in and sign in with a Google Workspace Super Admin account for the tenant you want to add to your Afi account.

After you sign in, you will be redirected to the next screen, suggesting to install the Afi application from the Google Workspace Marketplace for your Google Workspace tenant. Please click Install to proceed.

On the Afi page in the Google Workspace Marketplace, please click Admin install and grant the Afi application access rights to the Google Workspace tenant's data. By default, we recommend installing the Afi application for everyone in your Google Workspace organization.

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If you want to install the Afi application only for specific organizational units (OUs) or Google groups instead of the entire organization, please ensure that at least one of those OUs/groups includes an active Google Workspace Super Admin as well as the Super Admin account you’re using for onboarding. This setup might be error-prone if Super Admins are moved between OUs/groups. For reliability, we recommend installing the application for everyone in your organization.

After installation and consent, return to the Afi onboarding wizard; it will proceed to the next step. (If you closed the wizard, you can restart it any time from the Afi portal.) If the wizard stays on Step 2 for more than a few minutes, verify that the Afi application is installed and has access to the Super Admin account you’re using for onboarding.

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In rare cases, permission propagation in Google Workspace can take up to 24 hours. If the application is installed correctly but the wizard doesn’t advance, wait a few hours and try again.

As a final step, select the region where the tenant’s backup data will be stored and the default time zone. The following backup regions are available: the United States, Europe (Netherlands), the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The selected time zone will be used for default backup schedule generation.

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You can check a tenant’s Afi region on the Service → Settings → Info tab in the Afi portal.

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The region where backup data for a tenant is stored can't be changed after its onboarding.

Wait for the initial Google Workspace resource discovery

After onboarding, Afi starts an initial discovery of Google Workspace resources. This can take from seconds to several hours for very large tenants (tens of thousands of users). When complete, you’ll be redirected to the Afi portal and receive an email notification that your tenant is ready. If anything goes wrong during this step, please contact Afi Support or consult the troubleshooting article.

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The Afi application requires access to at least one active Google Workspace Super Admin account at all times to discover Google Workspace resources. It isn’t tied to a specific Super Admin; it selects an available Super Admin from the list captured during the previous discovery.

If you have only one Super Admin and need to replace it:

1. Create or promote a new Super Admin.
2. In Afi, trigger a resource discovery by clicking the refresh icon in the top-right corner of Service → Protection.
3. After the resource discovery finishes successfully, delete or demote the old Super Admin. You can monitor discovery status at Activity → Tasks.

Protect your data

Data protection and basic data access, search, export, and recovery scenarios are covered in our first steps guide.

How to add multiple tenants under an Afi account

Afi adopts a multi-tenant organizational and access model, allowing you to add and manage multiple Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, or Kubernetes tenants under a single Afi account (organization).

To add another tenant to your existing Afi account, click + Add data source in the dropdown at the top of the screen, select the tenant kind in the prompted dialog, and follow the wizard.